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It’s common to talk about how much we share with primate species; we’re evolutionary cousins, and humans share fully 98% of their genome with chimps, our closest animal relatives.

But in several important (if not exactly complimentary) ways, vervets are the monkeys most like us. Why?

They’re a bunch of neurotics.

Vervet monkeys are known to suffer from anxiety disorders, including maternal separation anxiety (although in the case of vervets, “empty nest” syndrome is more accurately described as “empty belly syndrome”; the babies cling onto their mothers physically full-time just after birth).

Of course excessive mothering—a problem Norman Bates, for one, can relate to—may be the start of the anxiety cycle. Not only does the mother of a vervet baby never let it leave her side…er, front…most of the females in a vervet group will similarly lavish it with unending affection. In fact, among younger vervet females, mothering the “right” newborns (i.e., those born to clan members with the highest social standing, or those of close relatives) takes on an almost competitive aspect; all the females will fight to hold or groom a newborn, who, it would seem, is basically never left alone for the first few months of its life.

Photo taken by Thomson Safaris guest, Len Kurzweil

Basically, Woody Allen would have material for years from these guys. Unsurprisingly, between 5 and 15% of the adult monkeys develop spontaneous high blood pressure (even after they cut back to a most-of-the-time vegetarian diet). What can you expect with that family?

They deal with these problems the way any good anxiety-ridden primate would: by drinking away their feelings.

A study of vervets on St. Kitt’s—a Caribbean island where vervets were imported a few hundred years ago, and where the monkeys long ago developed a pronounced taste for fermented sugar cane (read: rum)—revealed that vervets like themselves a drink.

Or five. Or 12. Or as many as they can take before they pass out. Around 5% of the monkeys are binge drinkers. This group—often comprised of young males (they really MUST be our cousins)—will drink themselves to death within 2-3 months if given unlimited access to the sauce (luckily, this doesn’t happen much in the wild, where they rely mainly on daiquiris stolen from tourists).

About 15% of the vervets are what we’d call “functional alcoholics.” Luckily for them, vervet society is firmly stuck in the Mad Men era; drinking a few whiskeys neat with lunch is just a sign that you deserve respect.

The majority of the monkeys are social drinkers, and prefer to steal tourist beverages that have been jazzed up with fruit juices or soft drinks. They never drink before lunch (for SHAME!), and never drink alone.

And another 15% of the monkeys are teetotalers, and are presumably shocked and appalled by the drunken fools they have to share St. Kitt’s with.

Why so much drinking? Well, it could be that vervets are, well…jerks.

Young vervets often terrorize their (admittedly overbearing) parents by sounding alarm calls when they’re just fine, just to see the fallout, and adult vervets are one of the few non-human species who do things out of spite: they’ve been observed destroying a competitor’s food source (rather than stealing it or eating it themselves), presumably to make sure that guy NEVER CROSSES THEM AGAIN.

Presumably, as long as they don’t steal a rival’s alcohol supplies, everything will work out fine in the end. Or at least they’ll forget why—or that—they were ever mad with one another.

Sometimes people think we have a monopoly on strange behavior, bizarre habits, and quirky character traits, but that’s not true; there’s plenty of wildlife as weird as we are! For example, there’s…

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Nature’s Garbage Disposal: The African Civet

You know that one friend who cleans every last speck off his plate…then moves on to everyone else’s? That’s the civet, an animal that looks like a cross between a cat and a weasel, and eats like he’s crossing a food court, and stopping at every station. Civets eat snails, crabs, turtles and frogs; fish, chickens, birds and small reptiles; maggots, dung beetles, cockroaches, termites, and carrion. Then, to make sure they stay balanced, they might top all that off with some leaves, shoots, sweet potatoes, peanuts, corn, and a nice fruit-plate.

Medieval beliefs about animals are fascinating, in no small part because most of the people writing about the strange and fantastic creatures of the world had never seen them. Or anything like them. Also they believed in magic.

That probably explains the brisk trade in oryx horns in medieval England, where they were sold as unicorn horns. The unicorn was viewed as a symbol of purity and grace, and its characteristic spiral horn was thought to have magical properties, cure disease, and detect poisons.

Fortunately for the salesmen, on an oryx you have double the horns to sell.

Vervets have developed a seriously entrenched social structure based on who your parents (more specifically your mother) was. They’re like the royal family, except slightly less tolerant of incursions by “commoners.”

In vervet society, the rank of a female is determined entirely by the rank her mother holds. This hierarchy is so strictly adhered to that the baby of a high-ranking female gets preference over adults of an inferior status.

Male monkeys leave the clan to make their own way, and their status is based on strength, age, how long they’ve lived with the group, and alliances they’ve formed.

The ladies, though, are born princesses…or peasants.

Photo by Thomson Safaris staffer, Bryan Rotundo

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Nature’s Fashion Model: The Bushbuck

With their willowy legs, natural grace, and of course those massive doe-eyes, it’s only natural that antelope are runway-ready.

But the bushbuck takes it a step (or catwalk) further.

Rather than fighting for mates, male bushbuck prance for them, displaying their unique markings with a special arch-backed, high-stepping walk.

Bushbuck are also capable of living (briefly) off of dew. Now if only they could brew it into coffee and enjoy it with a cigarette, they’d really give the human models a catwalk for their money.

Genets are omnivores, eating everything from small mammals to eggs to insects to fruit, but with food they hunt, they are known to be “wasteful” killers; often they’ll eat only the head or breast of an animal.

Of course in the bush, leftovers are readily taken care of. And if you live near a genet, there will be plenty of them to go around…

Photo: Thomson Safaris guest, Jon Goulden

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Nature’s Expiration Date: The Waterbuck

Sometimes, you’re not sure whether or not you should eat the casserole hidden at the back of your fridge.

And sometimes you can just TELL it has gone off.

Putrefaction is one of the waterbuck’s best defenses from predators; as an animal grows older, secretions from its sweat glands build up, giving the meat a distinct “past its prime” smell that turns predators away.

Of course it probably turns just about everyone else away, too, but that’s a small price to pay for staying off the menu.

Thomson Safaris

Founded in 1981 and based in Watertown Massachusetts, Thomson Safaris has been handcrafting trips-of-a-lifetime for over 30 years. Tanzania is our only destination, and has truly become our second home. We’re excited to be able to share it with you through stories and features on our blog.